Infographic: Rise of the Chatbots

While they started out as technological curiosities -- pet projects of computer scientists at MIT, Stanford, and other tech havens -- chatbots are now evolving into the next big interface for doing anything and everything. Ordering flowers, checking the weather, hailing a ride … a few short years ago we'd say, "There's an app for that." But more and more it seems we're able to say, "There's a chatbot for that." One of the main drivers of the rise of the chatbots, of course, is the rise of 1:1 messaging. While AOL and MSN Messenger offered us a glimpse of the future with SmarterChild, messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger and Slack are now helping to elevate chatbots from interesting playthings to powerful tools.